Eurasian curlew, Numenius arquata (protonym, Scolopax Arquata), also known as the common curlew, as the European curlew or the western curlew, as the whaup (in Scotland) or simply as the curlew, photographed at Hong Kong, a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China.

Question: This southeast Asian mystery bird species has a cousin with a special talent that was recently in the news. Can you tell me more about that?

Response: This is a Eurasian curlew, Numenius arquata, a member of the very large sandpiper family, Scolopacidae. The population of this species is declining, and in some countries, it is considered to be threatened with extinction.

There are eight species in the genus Numenius, but the populations of two of these species have declined to the point where they are considered to be either critically endangered or recently extinct. Those unfortunate species are the Eskimo curlew, N. borealis, which probably became extinct in the early 2000s and the slender-billed curlew, N. tenuirostris, which to the best of my knowledge, was last seen in 2006 when a lone individual was spotted in Albania.

In Europe and Asia, the Eurasian curlew is mainly confused with the whimbrel, N. phaeopus , but it can be distinguished by its larger size and longer, more smoothly curved bill, and by the lack of distinct stripes on top of its head.

Here's a brief video comparing the behaviour and calls of the whimbrel, a slender-billed curlew (likely extinct) and an Eurasian curlew:

The whimbrel, which this bird was originally and erroneously identified as, is the most widespread of the curlews, breeding across much of subarctic North America, Europe and Asia as far south as Scotland. It is a strongly migratory species, often flying tens of thousands of kilometers between its wintering and breeding areas. It is this epic annual migration that earned this species a place in the news recently, when an adult female whimbrel, named Machi, flew through Tropical Storm Maria and landed safely, only to be shot dead less than an hour later in a frenzy of unregulated testosterone-driven "hunting" on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe [news story and press release, including photographs]. Machi had been fitted with a solar-powered satellite transmitter two years ago, and her movements had been tracked over 43,452 km (27,000 miles), including seven nonstop flights of more than 3200 km (2,000 miles) each. During the spring of 2010, Machi flew nonstop for six days from Brazil to South Carolina -- a distance of more than 5470 km (3,400 miles).

A second whimbrel, named Goshen, was also tragically shot dead nearby on the same island within a few minutes of Machi's death. Goshen had arrived on Guadeloupe after flying through Hurricane Irene.

These two deaths serve to underscore the mindless unregulated slaughter of migratory birds, all in the name of "sport". Although considering that these birds arrive, dehydrated and hungry -- and often exhausted after flying through major storm systems -- only to be shot by overfed gun-toting goat-ropers makes such slaughter hardly appear "sporting" at all. This barbaric behaviour is especially disturbing because the whimbrel populations that migrate along the western Atlantic flyway have declined by 50 percent since the mid-1990s, despite the fact that these birds are protected species in United States and Canada, and despite intensive efforts to conserve this species. It makes one wonder what these gun-toting philistines will shoot after all the birds are extinct?